To Cuba and back. :: :: University of Virginia Library

Friday, February 18.—We are to go in at
sunrise, and few, if any, are the passengers
that are not on deck at the first glow of
dawn. Before us lie the novel and exciting
objects of the night before. The steep Morro,
with its tall sentinel lighthouse, and its towers
and signal staffs and teeth of guns, is
coming out into clear daylight; the red and
yellow striped flag of Spain—blood and gold
—floats over it. Point after point in the
city becomes visible; the blue and white
and yellow houses, with their roofs of dull
red tiles, the quaint old Cathedral towers,
and the almost endless lines of fortifications.
The masts of the immense shipping
rise over the headland, the signal for leave
to enter is run up, and we steer in under
full head, the morning gun thundering from

the Morro, the trumpets braying and drums
beating from all the fortifications, the Morro,
the Punta, the long Cabaña, the Casa Blanca
and the city walls, while the broad sun is
fast rising over this magnificent spectacle.

What a world of shipping! The masts
make a belt of dense forest along the edge of
the city, all the ships lying head in to the street,
like horses at their mangers; while the vessels
at anchor nearly choke up the passage ways to
the deeper bays beyond. There are the red
and yellow stripes of decayed Spain; the
blue, white and red—blood to the fingers' end
—of La Grande Nation; the Union crosses
of the Royal Commonwealth; the stars and
stripes of the Great Republic, and a few flags
of Holland and Portugal, of the states of
Northern Italy, of Brazil, and of the republics
of the Spanish Main. We thread our slow
and careful way among these, pass under the
broadside of a ship-of-the-line, and under the
stern of a screw frigate, both bearing the Spanish
flag, and cast our anchor in the Regla Bay,
by the side of the steamer Karnac, which sailed
from New York a few days before us.

Instantly we are besieged by boats, some
loaded with oranges and bananas, and others
coming for passengers and their luggage, all
with awnings spread over their sterns, rowed
by swarthy, attenuated men, in blue and white
checks and straw hats, with here and there
the familiar lips and teeth, and vacant, easily-pleased
face of the negro. Among these boats
comes one, from the stern of which floats the
red and yellow flag with the crown in its field,
and under whose awning reclines a man in
a full suit of white linen, with straw hat and
red cockade and a cigar. This is the Health
Officer. Until he is satisfied, no one can come
on board, or leave the vessel. Capt. Bullock
salutes, steps down the ladder to the boat,
hands his papers, reports all well,—and we are
pronounced safe. Then comes another boat of
similar style, another man reclining under the
awning with a cigar, who comes on board, is
closeted with the purser, compares the passenger
list with the passports, and we are declared
fully passed, and general leave is given to land
with our luggage at the custom-house wharf.

Now comes the war of cries and gestures

and grimaces among the boatmen, in their
struggle for passengers, increased manifold by
the fact that there is but little language in
common between the parties to the bargains,
and by the boatmen being required to remain
in their boats. How thin these boatmen look!
You cannot get it out of your mind that they
must all have had the yellow fever last summer,
and are not yet fully recovered. Not only
their faces, but their hands and arms and legs
are thin, and their low-quartered slippers only
half cover their thin yellow feet.

In the hurry, I have to hunt after the passengers
I am to take leave of who go on
to New Orleans:—Mr. and Mrs. Benchley, on
their way to their intended new home in Western
Texas, my two sea-captains, and the little
son of my friend, who is the guest, on this
voyage, of our common friend the captain,
and after all, I miss the hearty hand-shake of
Bullock and Rodgers. Seated under an awning,
in the stern of a boat, with my trunk and
carpet-bag and an unseasonable bundle of
Arctic overcoat and fur cap in the bow, I
am pulled by a man with an oar in each hand

and a cigar in mouth, to the custom-house
pier. Here is a busy scene of trunks, carpetbags,
and bundles; and up and down the
pier, marches a military grandee of about the
rank of a sergeant or sub-lieutenant, with a
preposterous strut, so out of keeping with the
depressed military character of his country,
and not possible to be appreciated without
seeing it. If he would give that strut on the
boards, in New York, he would draw full
houses nightly.

Our passports are kept, and we receive a
license to remain and travel in the island, good
for three months only, for which a large fee is
paid. These officers of the customs are civil
and reasonably rapid; and in a short time my
luggage is on a dray driven by a negro, and I
am in a volante, managed by a negro postilion,
and am driving through the narrow streets of
this surprising city.

The streets are so narrow and the houses
built so close upon them, that they seem to
be rather spaces between the walls of houses
than highways for travel. It appears impossible
that two vehicles should pass abreast; yet they

do so. There are constant blockings of the
way. In some places awnings are stretched
over the entire street, from house to house, and
we are riding under a long tent. What strange
vehicles these volantes are!—A pair of very
long, limber shafts, at one end of which is a
pair of huge wheels, and at the other end a horse
with his tail braided and brought forward and
tied to the saddle, an open chaise body resting
on the shafts, about one third of the way
from the axle to the horse; and on the horse is
a negro, in large postilion boots, long spurs,
and a bright jacket. It is an easy vehicle to
ride in; but it must be a sore burden to the
beast. Here and there we pass a private volante,
distinguished by rich silver mountings
and postilions in livery. Some have two
horses, and with the silver and the livery and
the long dangling traces and a look of superfluity,
have rather an air of high life. In most,
a gentleman is reclining, cigar in mouth; while
in others, is a great puff of blue or pink muslin
or calico, extending over the sides to the shafts,
topped off by a fan, with signs of a face behind
it. "Calle de los Officios," "Calle del Obispo,"

"Calle de San Ignacio," "Calle de Mercaderes,"
are on the little corner boards. Every
little shop and every big shop has its title; but
nowhere does the name of a keeper appear.
Almost every shop advertises "por mayor y
menor," wholesale and retail. What a Gil
Bias, Don Quixote feeling the names of "posada,"
"tienda," and "cantina" give you!

There are no women walking in the streets,
except negresses. Those suits of seersucker,
with straw hats and red cockades, are soldiers.
It is a sensible dress for the climate. Every
third man, perhaps more, and not a few
women, are smoking cigars or cigarritos. Here
are things moving along, looking like cocks of
new mown grass, under way. But presently
you see the head of a horse or mule peering
out from under the mass, and a tail is visible
at the other end, and feet are picking their
slow way over the stones. These are the carriers
of green fodder, the fresh cut stalks and
blades of corn; and my chance companion in
the carriage, a fellow passenger by the Cahawba,
a Frenchman, who has been here before,
tells me that they supply all the horses

and mules in the city with their daily feed, as
no hay is used. There are also mules, asses,
and horses with bananas, plantains, oranges
and other fruits in panniers reaching almost
to the ground.

Here is the Plaza de Armas, with its garden
of rich, fragrant flowers in full bloom, in front
of the Governor's Palace. At the corner, is
the chapel erected over the spot where, under
the auspices of Columbus, mass was first
celebrated on the island. We are driven by
a gloomy convent, by innumerable shops, by
drinking places, billiard rooms, and the thick,
dead walls of houses, with large windows,
grated like dungeons, and large gates, showing
glimpses of interior court-yards, sometimes
with trees and flowers. But horses and carriages
and gentlemen and ladies and slaves,
all seem to use the same entrance. The windows
come to the ground, and, being flush with
the street, and mostly without glass, nothing
but the grating prevents a passenger from
walking into the rooms. And there the ladies
and children sit sewing, or lounging, or playing.
This is all very strange. There is evidently

enough for me to see in the ten or
twelve days of my stay.

But there are no costumes among the men,
no Spanish hats, or Spanish cloaks, or bright
jackets, or waistcoats, or open, slashed trowsers,
that are so picturesque in other Spanish
countries. The men wear black dress coats,
long pantaloons, black cravats, and many of
them even submit, in this hot sun, to black
French hats. The tyranny of systematic, scientific,
capable, unpicturesque, unimaginative
France, evidently rules over the realm of man's
dress. The houses, the vehicles, the vegetation,
the animals, are picturesque; to the eye
of taste

"Every prospect pleases, and only man is vile."

"We drove through the Puerta de Monserrate,
a heavy gateway of the prevailing yellow
or tawny color, where soldiers are on guard,
across the moat, out upon the "Paseo de Ysabel
Segunda," and are now "estramuros,"
without the walls. The Paseo is a grand avenue
running across the city from sea to bay,
with two carriage-drives abreast, and two
malls for foot passengers, and all lined with

trees in full foliage. Here you catch a glimpse
of the Morro, and there of the Presídio. This
is the Teatro de Tacon; and, in front of this
line of tall houses, in contrast with the almost
uniform one-story buildings of the city, the
volante stops. This is Le Grand's hotel.